


Now, Until the Break of Day

by yellowRavenstone



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Neil Perry (Dead Poets Society) Lives, change my mind, in which neil lives, neil perry is fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27961919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowRavenstone/pseuds/yellowRavenstone
Summary: (TW: mentions of s***ide)"He’d learned anatomy. He knew how guns worked. He knew that a point blank shot to the brain kills a man.But he hadn’t been killed.So if he wasn’t a man, what was he?"(I do not own DPS or any of the characters.)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Now, Until the Break of Day

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to start this off by saying that as this fic deals with Dead Poet's Society, it contains mentions of and some depictions of abuse, s***ide, and other such topics. It's really not any worse than the movie, but I know that things can be triggering so I would like to warn any readers beforehand. All this to say, this is a fix it fic, so Neil does not die.  
> And if you are struggling with this kind of thing, this problem of living, please know, please be very assured. Your life is worth living. You are loved, special and necessary. I don't know what we'd do without you.

“For the first time in my whole life, I know what I want to do.”  
-Neil Perry  
“Neil, Neil. You have the gift.”  
-John Keating

Neil didn’t know why he’d laid out his pajamas across his bed. He couldn’t explain why he’d left his towel, and robe, and shaving kit on the comforter. Maybe it was the thought of leaving behind remnants. Some last act that no one would have the heart to undo. Except, they might. After he was gone, would they just pretend he’d never been theirs? Maybe. It didn’t matter. The air, though it should be cold, was thick and heavy. An unsettling determination to be unswayed filled his bare chest.  
He opened the window. Snow danced across the windowsill. It tried to fill his lungs with chill, with shock, to break him out of what was consuming him internally. It failed.  
He placed a crown upon his head. A crown of twigs and berries. A piece of the miserable house that was his. His alone. They could never take Puck from him. They had no part in it. The crown was his, along with the feeling of a stage beneath his feet and that gentle golden glint of feeling truly alive that had accompanied the part.  
They refused to let him feel alive. They refused to let him live.  
He dropped his head to his chest. The air hung heavier still as he walked down the hall. Some terrible omen of guilt weighed on him as he passed their room. He could not weep for them, though he knew he probably should. He walked on, lost in a feeling that was made of fear and lies, but felt like an answer.  
He sat on the leather chair that belonged to his father. Like everything else in the miserable house, it was lifeless and rough and belonged to them.  
It didn’t matter how he’d got the key, just that he now had it. The drawer opened with a turn, and a slide, movement and sound Neil barely registered.  
He picked up the bundle inside.  
Which a swallow, he lifted the silver gun from the fabric that had protected it. He was shaking but he hardly noticed. It seemed like there was only one choice. One thing he could do. He was, of course, wrong about that. But at the moment, in the emotion filled fog he walked and moved, it felt right.  
Before he could think otherwise, he stood, raised the gun to his head. His only thought was the same word that had been running through his head on repeat. Trapped. He closed his eyes.  
The world seemed to still as he pulled the trigger.  
The noise shook him. It was the first thing that did. In a sudden, seering moment he realized something that shook him to his core and scared him to death.  
He didn’t want to die.  
He heard something metal hit the ground, and it shook him further.  
He wasn’t dead.  
He was standing, with a smoking gun against his temple, and he was still alive.  
He fell to his knees, the gun fell from his hand. He ran a shaking hand over his head, over where there should be a bullet hole. His own hair rustled under his fingers. No blood. No bullet hole. He lowered his hand. And laughed.  
Strangely, softly, beautifully, he laughed. A laugh of disbelief. A laugh of hope. Because at that moment, (and it really was only a moment, though it felt a good deal longer) Neil Perry realized something incredible. As soon as the bullet hit the ground, he had filled with such a rush of something only described as the thrill of living that he realized that he never truly wanted to die. He wanted to be alive. His chest filled with the soft blue cloud of relief, and he breathed deeply, aware of each breath. Each wonderful breath. Something happened then, something soft and powerful and deep. Neil realized what living meant to him. He wanted to live a life that was his. A life full of richness and worth. A life full of flowers and playwrights and music and poetry. A life of colors and lights. A life, so in opposition to his father's designs for him. A life that wasn’t theirs. A life that was his. His the way his crown was. His the way Puck was.  
And as soon as that rushing, sweeping moment was over, a new one began.  
One of confusion and panic. One where he realized there was no explanation for the fact that he was still breathing. He picked up the gun, turned it over in his hand. He opened the cartridge. They were bullets, not blanks. He searched the floor for the source of the sound he’d heard. A small, lead bullet lay on the floor. He raised it in front of his eyes. It was crushed as if he’d shot it against something solid. He dropped it. His breathing was louder than his thoughts for once.  
He’d learned anatomy. He knew how guns worked. He knew that a point blank shot to the brain kills a man.  
But he hadn’t been killed.  
So if he wasn’t a man, what was he?  
And as that moment crashed headfirst into the third, the thought that flew over everything was a question. “What was he?”  
And then suddenly, his mind filled with the smell of foxgloves and forget-me-nots, the sound of rushing waters and jingling laughter, the smirk of the moon, and the feel of grass beneath barefeet. And a word, a name, a title. His. His own. Not human, no. He never had been.  
Neil Perry was fae.  
He didn’t belong to this world that he’d thought so long he was trapped in.  
The window to his left showed him the promise of a world newly untouched. A snowy landscape without blemish or step.  
And then only thought he could form rightly was that that was all he needed to do. To step out of this mask that he’d put on himself. That others had forced on him. To step out of this role. This acting job of a lifetime. The part of the dutiful son. The part that he would never play again.  
Another moment began then, one characterized by planning.  
All Neil wanted was to disappear. To vanish from this life and move into his new one. The thought filled him with excitement and very nearly made him cry. For the second time in his whole life, he knew what he wanted to do.  
But disappearing would cause problems, and suddenly Neil was vastly aware of what would happen if he just vanished.  
His father would think one of the Dead Poets was hiding him. They would pester and plague them with evil, unanswerable questions. That couldn’t happen.  
Death is so final.  
They couldn’t really ask too many questions if he was dead.  
But now he was certain he’d never truly wanted to be dead in the first place. Now his life was his, and he could live deliberately.  
So the only way out of it was to fake it.  
But how?  
In Neil's precarious wondering about how he was going to pull it off, he found himself in possession of a wish. A wish that perhaps whenever his father entered his study, he would see a body that seemed to belong to Neil.  
And since magic is such a funny thing, particularly new magic in the hands of one unskilled with it, it granted his wish.  
Neil jumped out of the way as a figure that matched his own sprawled across the floor in front of him.  
An illusion.  
A fae trick.  
And he...he had caused it.  
He swallowed and very nearly let a laugh escape his lips again.  
But then a door slammed upstairs, and panic and ruin and a thousand terrible fears rained down on him at once.  
He glanced at the body that looked so very much like his and shivered.  
A replacement, so that he could live a new life.  
And suddenly he remembered how many times he’d read of replacements placed by Fae, replacement children not ever meant to be human.  
And instead of a soft wave of gentle memories, this brought with it a typhoon.  
But not a wind and wave storm that broke apart things. One that filled him with the realization of all that he was and was meant to be. A storm of purpose. Of greatness. A storm of life. Real, unhindered, life with the marrow sucked out.  
Not only Fae, but a Changeling as well.  
Never meant to be human, never expected to act the way he’d been told.  
No obligation to the rules he’d long felt necessary.  
And only the choice to live.  
He opened the window in a motion too quickly for him. Power and magic and something like honey flowed through his veins. The air outside felt richer than any he’d ever breathed.  
As the footsteps of the man that he’d long called father came down the hall, Neil had made his choice.  
To live.  
He jumped from the sill of the window, reached up to pull it back down, and ran.  
Ran with richness in his bones, with energy that didn’t make sense to him, away from the cage they’d made for him.  
The snow landed against his bare skin but he didn’t notice.  
The cold filled his lungs with excitement.  
He was alive.  
His footsteps filled with snow, the evidence of his escape washed away.  
Alive.  
Just as he wanted to be.


End file.
